II

and right now she just might come shining through
glory of love

-- Lou Reed

In like a lamb, out like a lion. Despite my proclamation that this would be the summer to end all summers, I must admit, it has taken time for things to reach the epic levels of the previous summer when I was drunk on Park Avenue in 300$ shoes and staring up at the Empire State Building at 4am, or running away in borrowed cars, and booking hotel rooms on remote islands to make art, or chatting all night with sophisticated and mature whores at the red restaurant with Tony while their clients looked over with a quiet confidence that they were the ones paying, and ultimately getting laid. I could go on, but you get the picture; last summer rocked, and maybe can't be matched, we'll see.

Rarely have I been at home this week, and often think that I would be better off renting a month to month hotel room on the east side instead of the downtown loft that I am living in now. But last night I came home around 2:30 and surveyed my place from the foyer after strolling through throngs of drunken, shouting. cell phone talking, sideways smoking bar patrons spilling into the streets, and looked out the open windows to the grid of glowing empty offices across the alley. I fancied having such an orderly environment waiting for me whenever I need it. My little square in the maze of concrete blocks known as the hometown.

I had drinks last night with Dragica, Nikolai, and Crissy. I need to work on my international travel, as I am often felled silent when the conversation turns to such matters. Nikolai was visiting from Croatia and was planning on living in Rome after August. What does one come back with after hearing something as romantic as that? I left shortly after the second pitcher of Margarita was ordered to meet Frannie and Tempest at the quiet bar. They are working together again after wrapping a Disney film two months ago. My mouth was flapping pretty well by the time I got there, and I am sure I said some stuff I shouldn't have but that is what the quiet bar is like. It's like drinking in someone's basement. There's nothing to do but fill the silence, and when people want to fill a silence with words they say things without thinking. I do it all the time but it doesn't bother me anymore. Frannie and Tempest were discussing how they required an assistant to tend to Hikike Roshika, the star of the new project they were working on. It paid 800$ a week, plus a car rental. It was basically looking after her dog, and dealing with her style consultant which apparently is with her at all times. Imagine that, being paid that much money to fetch a movie star, and a hot one to boot, various wants and needs like the dry cleaning, or picking up her her dog's shit, or fetching that handbag her friend was talking about from Chanel. I need someone like that for me, not the other way around, but it was the car that interested me. I would love to have access to a car for the rest of the summer. I want to pile my closest friends into a car and drive somewhere, anywhere, and a rental would be perfect. I have become obsessed with the image of Jack Kerouac's muse, Dean Moriarty in On the Road,wiping clear a spot in the windshield of his stolen hudson, not a dime in his pocket, hunkered over the wheel, the radio blasting jazz, commanding a posse of people that would be lost without the influence of a mad cap turning to them every so often over the front seat, and yelling something about digging life and staying together. Off they went like that, south, to New Orleans, leaving the cold behind. I would pick up anyone's dog shit to be able to do something like that.

I know I said I wouldn't see Vernice again, but she called me at work earlier in the week with an announcement that there were two bottles of wine and a six pack of cold beer waiting for me in her fridge, and that she was making steak for dinner. I just couldn't say no. We drank the beer with goat cheese and crackers, had the steak with the first bottle of wine, and decided to skip dessert to drink the second one in the bath with Vernice's heat flushed skin accessible under the water to my naked foot. We stayed in the tub till the water cooled. I put my wine glass down on the floor, got out of the bath, and went to the living room window, naked, to stand before the view of the city and smoke. I heard a crash from the bathroom, and figured Vernice had dropped a wine glass. If only it were that simple. She had stepped right onto my wine glass on the floor when she was getting out of the bath, and had crushed it into her foot. When I walked into the bathroom to see what was going on she was standing there with the blood pouring out of her foot in a steady stream onto the floor at such an alarming rate that she immediately told me that I was going to have to call an ambulance. I was completely useless at first, and totally lost. I buzzed around her apartment, running in circles looking for something suitable to stop the blood with while imagining sirens, lights, police, and a crowd standing in the lobby of her high rise apartment watching Vernice being carried out on a stretcher, hands covering mouths, whispers to neighboring ears. I had the insane hope and ambition to somehow patch up her foot so that we could avoid all that and continue on with our drinks, we were having such a lovely time. The bottom of the bathtub was filled with blood by the time I returned from my freak out in the living room, so I finally accepted that the situation was not going to fix itself, attained some level of calm and usefulness, carried her quickly to the couch, elevated her foot, and tied a tea towel tight around her ankle. This had at least stopped the bleeding long enough so that we could figure out what we wanted to do. Both of us were foolishly apprehensive about calling the ambulance. We were drunk, and confused. So I started calling everyone I knew with a car in the hopes of getting a ride to the hospital. Tony was the only one that answered the phone, and while his two seater convertible roadster wasn't exactly ideal for transporting people to the hospital, I thought it would do. I got Vernice into some clothes and ran downstairs to let Tony into the building. What conditions to meet someone for the first time under. I introduced Vernice to Tony as he looked at the blood covered apartment with a silent but worried look. We tried to lift Vernice to the car waiting downstairs, but as soon as she was elevated again, the blood began to flow, and it was just not going to be possible to avoid involving an ambulance. The call was made, and Tony waited downstairs to let them in while I stayed with Vernice. She started to lose consciousness, and I went in to full panic mode, calling the ambulance back and telling them to hurry while slapping Vernice in the face, and yelling at her to stay awake. The paramedics were let in, Tony disappeared into the night and I answered a barrage of questions while Vernice was finally tended to by professionals. We spent the rest of the night under florescent bulbs in a small room in the emergency ward, only three rooms away from where I lay just over a year ago, shot full of morphine from stomach pain while untold horrors were coming true all around me. And while it sounds like a disaster date, something about those few hours spent in that small room. with all sorts of machinery attached to the walls to measure the body's condition seemed entirely romantic. Coming off all that adrenaline and wine I told her stories about the bruises the past had given me, and she told me how she felt alone in this world while I held her hand as she was stitched up, and finally sent home.

Summer is here alright, it's just been so crazy I've barely had time to stop and notice. The theme parties have started. Tonight is the "drinking" party, not unlike the "dancing" party of this past spring, and similar to the "ping pong" party that is coming up in August. They are excuses to dress up, and tonight I have assembled a smoking jacket, ascot, and pipe. We will consume whiskey. I will be with my family of friends. If a little blood gets spilled, or some vomit trickles from the corners of our mouths in between guffaws, or if we say and do things that we regret, it's ok. It's summer and it will all wash away with winter rains and gusty winds, and thought of from time to time with fondness.